Get In Your Places (we'll be a perfect family)
by Liberty Flight
Summary: Berthold Hawkeye gave his daughter his alchemy research when she is a child. Her grandfather discovers this and takes custody of Riza. General Grumman ponders over his relationship with young Riza and what he can do when he's already entered her life too late to save her from her father. -Grumman adopts Riza AU- a oneshot for the moment


**Get In Your Places (we'll be a perfect family)**

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He hadn't expected Riza to be happy here.

Grumman reflected on this fact as they ate an awkward dinner. He didn't taste anything, and he's sure she didn't either.

He had hoped, desperately, that she would be, but he knew better.

He knew better than to think she would be happy to be torn away from her father, especially so forcefully. But in his bones he knew that she couldn't stay with Berthold.

She would have endured, he knew that the alchemist in Berthold would never allow harm to come to his research.

But to his daughter? Grumman couldn't even say if Berthold even realized what he had done and had been continuing to do. If he had then he hadn't cared to stop.

Still, Grumman wished that he had not brought even more misery to Riza's life. Wished he had gone sooner.

Now Riza was safe. Well fed, well cared for, she went to a good school…Riza did not have to worry about navigating the unpredictable temper of her father, nor about whether she would be able to eat the next day, but still she did not smile and she did not speak.

It had been three weeks and she had not said a word.

She especially did not look at him.

He made a point to try to eat at least one meal with her a day, but the meals were tense, cutlery scraping against plates as loud as gun shots, the silence in between just as unnerving.

Riza kept her head bowed and her eyes fixed on anything except him, but Grumman felt her attention nonetheless. Sharp and appraising and afraid…She did not know what to think of him, except that she should be aware of his movements, but not so much as to blatantly stare lest she risk catching his eye.

It hurt to know she was afraid of him. Riza was his granddaughter and she looked so heartbreakingly like her mother it stole his breath. It frustrated him to know how wary she was of him, because he didn't know what to do. For all his tactical genius he did not know how to talk to her, how to explain what he had done.

He had ripped her away from her life, a stranger in a soldier's uniform, the same uniform her father had always cursed. A stranger had taken her from her only remaining parent, Grumman could hardly blame her for hating him.

He could not find the words to tell her that she was too thin, that she should not be searching to provide a meal to both her and her father so young, that even if he didn't mean it that her father should never grab her so forcefully as to leave marks.

Grumman couldn't even begin to explain the horror of what Berthold had done to her. That the scars and dark red ink marring her back were evidence of man gone mad, that pain was not the price of love.

No…He could not think to tell her any of these things. She loved her father too much, and Grumman found himself too much of a coward to tell her that no matter how much suffering she endured she could not cure her father or hope to have him look at her as a father should look at his child.

He could not tell her to be unafraid of him when Riza had learned too early the feeling of a palm striking her face, of a needle dipped in ink piercing her skin. All from the person who was supposed to protect her and love her most dearly.

Grumman could not say any of these things, even if she had known them already.

And so they sat in silence, Riza not having spoken a word since he had taken her from her father.

He wished Berthold had fought harder, if only for Riza's sake. But why would he? Grumman questioned uncharitably. He had done what he wanted with Riza, had imprinted on her all his prejudices and paranoia, had 'given' her his research. To fight more would have been pointless in his mind, wasted energy that could be spent on other alchemical pursuits.

Maybe Berthold had even had a moment of clarity, had known that Riza would be better off with someone else.

Despite her current mute state Grumman knew he would never get Riza's cries out of his head. The echoing screams of a child calling for her father.

And Berthold, the son of a bitch, hadn't even turned around.

Grumman could not blame Riza for being afraid of him. For hating him. He was the man who had taken her from her father.

As long as she believed that, then she could believe her father loved her, that he didn't harm her on purpose.

As long as Grumman remained the villain then Riza could believe that her father hadn't abandoned her like scrap paper for research he was no longer interested in.

Grumman couldn't fault her for that, just as much as he couldn't bring himself to tell her otherwise. He certainly couldn't undue years of enforced paranoia against the military in a matter of weeks. He couldn't lie and say that her father had been wrong when he had told her of what would be done to her if the research carved into her skin was discovered. He couldn't lie and say he was not part of that same military that she should rightfully fear.

No, he was too much of a coward, too uncertain, to confront any of the issues he knew he should.

So while he had taken her from her father, from a collapsing house of destitution, from near starvation and crushing poverty he had not mustered up the courage to speak to her about all that he had done or about all that her father had done.

He couldn't even work up the nerve to talk to her about their shared connection, couldn't even bring himself to talk of his daughter and Riza's mother. How could he explain why he had never been there before? Why he had only arrived long after the dirt on her mother's grave had settled and only to rip her away from her father.

He was a coward, he knew he was, but he just couldn't find the words.

He watched as Riza sat still and silent on the edge of her seat, eyes downcast as she waited for him to leave the table. She never left before him, even if she was finished. Her movements were always small and measured so as to remain unobtrusive, avoiding garnering too much attention in a practiced routine.

Afraid that if she moved he would notice and say something. Or worse, do something.

A particularly loud scrape from her fork against her plate, and he caught sight of her eyes clearly for the first time in weeks.

Riza's head jerked up to watch his reaction. Brown eyes wide with apprehension, fear and steeliness. Scared for what he would do, ready for it nonetheless. His heart constricted, he tried not to let his mournful thoughts into his expression.

His granddaughter was afraid of him.

He wished he could say that he would never hurt her, but she would never believe that.

After all, he already had.

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Day 2 of fma au week on tumblr one of the themes is: F is for Family

So this is a Grumman adopts Riza AU

An AU idea I've been writing/messing with for a while. I actually have more of it written, but *shrugs* haven't really hashed out everything so here's a glimpse of this au

Riza is about 8-9, her mother died about a year before, this is from Sad Grandpa Grumman's POV. He is trying His Best ™

disclaimer: don't own


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